Okay, this may well get you all wondering what the hell’s going on with me, but I had one of the coolest metaphysical experiences happen to me the other night. Sure, if I were you, reading this, I’d have the same questions, but I’m not…I was at the receiving end and know what I experienced.

I went to bed early Wednesday night after rereading some of the novel, The Education of Oversoul 7. I was reading a section that talked about the Oversoul Seven character annoyed that one of its earthly personalities only saw him as an older guy with graying hair.

So, I go to bed.

About an hour or two later, I’m awakened by this guy my age or older—with gray in his hair—leaning out/down to me. He’s reaching out with his left hand with a focused concentration and tapping me on the forehead as I lay in bed!

I then actually (I physically did this—it wasn’t a dream) reached up trying to block his tapping, and said something like “Oh,come on…” or “Nooo!” because he was waking me up, for Godsakes! You see, I’ve been having trouble sleeping the past week and I’d had a good sleep…even if for only that hour or two then!

The man’s face was neutral…not smiling nor angry. It was actually very intent—focused—as in trying to get through to me.

This has meaning.

I’m sure many of you think this totally fictional, another byproduct of the all-illusionary hypnogogic state brought on by the novel I was reading. And that’s okay. But I don’t feel this to be the case. It was far, far too coincidental. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me where I see something, watch a movie, read a book, then dream about it. My dreams just don’t work that way (and I’m quite aware of what I dream about and have been logging them since I was a kid, so I do know what I’m talking about, here).

This has meaning because I’ve recently been hoping I could have more dreams where I meet my oversoul—and remember it. Then the new novel I’m beginning work on caused me to return to this particular novel. Then, given the passage I’d just been reading, I have the experience just described.

It’s all part of a series of related events. As I always say, everything’s related to everything else.

This has to be my oversoul making “an appearance.” It’s been a year or more where I haven’t had an obvious dream about him/her and remembered it. It’s just too “coincidental,” and I don’t believe in meaningless coincidences.

And given the intense look of “focused concentration,” well, it’s one I obviously did remember!

What does it mean?

It means that there is another “entity” out there listening to me…and trying to help out in the background. Back behind the curtain of life. S/he (the male/female form presented is not the only form “they” [being “them”] wear) came at a perfect time…and with a perfect array of physical circumstances…my need, the novel, the passage within the novel…it’s all beautifully laid out if you think about it! Perfectly executed, with even a flair of not only the dramatic, but humor!

Really—tapping me on the forehead?!

It’s something my dad would do… but if that doesn’t get one’s attention….

All very much like who I am (dramatic: writing; humor: me). I just can’t convey how utterly perfect the execution enough!

I’d been so busy (mentally and physically) this week, it didn’t really hit me until yesterday how cool the execution…how dramatic an event it was! This happens in our physical existences, where we get so caught up in the daily minutiae of life. But we all have the ability to step back and pause: re-evaluate our days. Our actions. Our experiences. Many couch their similar experiences in religious clothes—or even outright ignore them—and that’s okay. We all have our personal beliefs and our experiences will be so filtered to match those beliefs. But that we have these experiences at all…that some of us are open to them and their many and varied interpretations is what’s important. You may think I saw an angel…or a hypnogogic character from a novel I was reading—and that’s your interpretation. Nothing wrong with it. But it’s not mine. And there’s nothing wrong with my interpretation. We all interpret our lives as we will and must. It’s one of the reasons we’re put into physical reality. It’s our own personal and individual path toward growth.

The following is the second part to a faux interview with me by one of the characters in my new novel, Voice. It delves into my metaphysical leanings and was removed from the main faux interview of me on my other blog, which is more about writing.

Voice: In Voice you wax philosophical. How did you get into all this New Age/metaphysical philosophy?

F. P.: New Age. My thoughts on the philosophy are similar to my thoughts on the writing of its fiction. It’s a term I’ve come to not like—and only because of all the negative connotation associated with it—otherwise, I have nothing against the term nor the “movement.” “New Age” has been around a long time. The concepts have been so associated with floozy philosophies and daisy power that I think it’s hurt the label. And since humans like to label things, I think we might need a new label—or a reeducation. But I like to think that my work can help change perceptions. Get people to be [more] introspective. Expand their awareness by considering other possibilities for why things might be. Give consideration to what might be happening in the background of our lives. Get them to not-so-easily dismiss the little “weird occurrences” that happen to our lives, for they are many! I’m not setting myself up as some guru or saying I know everything…I’m just trying to show other possibilities about why things might be.

I got into my Weltanschauung (world view), kind of interestingly. As I mentioned, I’ve always been interested in the strange and weird…the paranormal. As a youngster I had gotten these weird mailers for “occult” and supernatural books and I’d send away for them. Then one day—I had to be around 14 or so—I got a particular flyer for a book called Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts. It totally blew my mind! It kicked ass with respect to human thought and why we were all here, and anything else you wanted to ask. It—and all of Jane’s successive books that I bought—was simply and utterly amazing. If any of this was true, man, the world changes we could effect! It was staggering! The information came from Jane Roberts, as she channeled an “energy personality essence” who called itself “Seth.” All major religious change started from some kind of inspiration, and I maintain that “channeling”—while I am highly, highly suspect of anyone who outwardly claims this, highly, highly suspicious—is no different than anyone else’s inspiration: John the Baptist or John Smith, you pick the “john,” the leader. And I’m not saying just because you’re inspired you’re right. I’m just talking pure mechanics, here. Followers and writers just call it “inspiration”—or madness. Who’s to say that inspiration isn’t channeling? That our ideas, though coming from us, our personality vessels, might not also come from something or someone deeper within? Not just God, but other “personalities” within us…nonphysical energies behind and a part of who we are? Might they not come from “world views” like has been written about in The World View of Paul Cézanne, and The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher? And if this was true (which I feel it is)…isn’t it exactly how it might work? Just think outside the box for a second. Now, whether or not you should hang your hat on any of this inspiration is another story…but, again, I’m just talking about the involved mechanics…not the content of the inspiration. Inspiration can be misinterpreted. But, then again, all interpretation is highly individual…and is interpreted by individuals as it will and must be. But that still doesn’t make it “right” for others.

So I read this Seth material and was stunned by every word of it. Amazed. Even downright scared at times. I remember one day, as a kid, going to my mother and talking to her about this. I told her how scary some of it sounded, and asked her how could it be real? I don’t recall much of the conversation, but I do remember my mom being very supportive and understanding, and somehow putting me to ease. Must be a mother thing.

Voice: It is.

F. P.: So, as I grew up, I continued reading absolutely any book Jane and Seth (Jane’s husband, Rob Butts, transcribed all these books as Jane related them aloud) put out. I also studied religion—I was actually raised Roman Catholic—and philosophy. I did this both on my own and while studying in college. I was actually one class short of a philosophy minor. I decided to see if these concepts really worked. See how much of life’s questions they could answer—and I don’t mean like those simple “it’s the Devil’s work” wave-of-the-hand snippets. I needed more…and what “more” was I wouldn’t know until confronted with it. Well, what I found—and I’d actually gotten back into the traditional religious side of things for a spell—was that whether I was “religious” or wasn’t I would get what I wanted…so how could one faction be wrong and the other right? Well, these mind-bending philosophies from Jane’s books explained everything to me—or a helluva lot more than anything else out there I’d ever read before or since—including traditional eastern philosophy. Seth’s work is like a Venn Diagram: I can place absolutely every other philosophical thought or concept or issue into the answers and explanations I got from Seth/Jane’s books, but not the other way around. I used my life experience to prove these concepts and didn’t just blindly accept what I had read. I simply found that “Seth/Jane’s concepts” worked in everyday life. Whether or not she channeled the information or “made it up”—it didn’t matter to me, it all worked, and made sense to me, even if they didn’t appear to work.

Voice: Explain.

F. P.: Most of the concepts are based on us controlling and creating our own lives—not everything that is, but our physical lives. That we are the energy behind the rocks and trees and pollution, you name it. God, or as I prefer All That Is, is the energy behind us. Within us. Allowing us our lives and value fulfillment. Giving us unconditional love and support. In a nutshell. There’s a little more to it, but that’s why there’re so many books on the subject. So, when things don’t work, the philosophy explains why it doesn’t work, and there could be any of a number of reasons. For example: say you have a fear of intimacy—and most of our seeming failures, by the way, seem to be related to some kind of fear—you seem to get close to a person, but always end up breaking up…or never finding that one “perfect” person. Well, the quick and dirty explanation could be that you—not the world, not the people you’re dating and meeting—but you are the one pushing people away. You are bringing into your life situations that consciously or unconsciously reinforce your system of beliefs that (maybe) you are unworthy. Your fears are keeping you from finding who you want…not that there’s no one out there for you. The people that are coming into your life are there for their reasons as well, but this doesn’t negate that you brought your version of theminto your life to begin with. You attracted them. So, the theory goes, by changing your beliefs, which is not always an easy thing to do (but should be), I’m saying you’ll change your life. We all interact with each other for our own physical and nonphysical reasons, but our own circles of influence are brought on by us…individually and en masse…not by any “external” forces or causes. We bring everything into our own lives, good and bad. Any further explanation here, gets book length, and that’s why there are so many books! The books get very detailed.

In any event, I try to incorporate aspects of all this philosophy into all I write. Sometimes it’s more obvious than others. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s sexy, as with Voice.

Voice: Well, thank you for some insight to your philosophy and how it ties into your work!

This Is Your Life. (Photo: Wiki, Five-set Venn diagram, by Branko Grünbaum)

The title of this site is “Reality Check,” so I’d like to “reality check” something I recently read somewhere and to which I do hear mentioned a lot out “in the wild” of life. This, and another issue, had been buzzing around in my head all week.

Having it all.

What does that mean?

Can you really?

When I was in my twenties I tried to “have it all.” I was an Air Force officer, I began putting in serious, daily efforts in fiction writing (even took a Writer’s Digest correspondence course), and I did the following physical activities in a typically weekly cycle (certain activities, like skiing and road biking, were obviously seasonal, but I did run in the snow and cold and hiked as weather permitted): weight training (heavy!), martial arts (two styles), running, [road] biking, swimming, skiing, hiking, softball. I think that’s everything. And, for a period of time, I was getting four hours of sleep (I don’t recall how long I was doing this, but I did experiment with it; as I remember it, I did pretty good with it, just don’t recall for how long–and no, I don’t do that now). I had a resting heart rate in the 40s, was around 185/190 pounds at just under six feet.

I thought, yeah, man, I really can do this! If I keep this up, keep working out, I’ll be in superior shape in my later years and will look and feel and be better in my 40s+ than most people my age, and won’t tweak myself picking up a glass of water.

In short…I thought I could have it all.

You know what happened?

My joints started killing me.

Even in my twenties, my body couldn’t take it. Sure, it was fun, I had a blast, but I learned that in our physical existence, we have to make choices. In fact, I’d go so far as to say, that we’re not meant to “have it all.” We’re meant to make choices from the vast array of life experiences and focus in minute detail on that which we choose. Now, I do make the argument that in my belief of living multiple, simultaneous lives, there we can “have it all,” in that all the different versions of ourselves will make different decisions. That they will take the paths not traveled, the forks-in-the-road, not taken. And those decisions will lead to other decisions and choices undreamed of.

I also believe that those experiences bleed across our simultaneous lives to enrich the other lives, because, as I always love to say, all things are connected. Everything is tied to everything else. I also believe we can all see this in ourselves, if we look to our latent-but-not-use talents. Tangential interests. Daydreamed and nocturnally dreamed activities.

Do you have an interest in art, but are a Forest Ranger?

Does your vision correct to 20/10, but you’re myopic?

Are you a “natural” in the cockpit of a plane and unafraid when you lost altitude and the instructor pilot told you you better pull up?

Are you a Cubicle Warrior, but love the outdoors and find nature skills easy to learn and put into practice?

Look within yourselves and see what latent abilities, what likes and dislikes you secretly harbor and wonder about. They could very likely belong to another “Probable You,” running around out there this very minute…and day dreaming about you.

To be blunt, there is no physical way any of us can “have it all.” Let’s face it, we’d be God. We’re not God. Any idiot can tell you that by just turning on the TV. We are who we are, we’re here for whatever purpose, but within the Venn diagram of all this, we have to make decisions. We have to have some things, reject others.

We have to learn from our choices, live with our choices.

If you feel such a burning need to “have it all,” ask yourself…why? Do you understand the ramifications of such thinking? The damage it will do not only to your personal well-being and physical body, but also to your life and those in orbit around you? We all need time to recuperate, physically and mentally, and I don’t see a lot of that these days. I see a lot of literally violent, explosive behavior. Now, I’m no psychiatrist, but I would heavily wager that many of us are becoming so mentally stressed out, so pushed beyond the edge by the super-sized overloaded and the “have it all” society that we’re short circuiting.

So, I ask that we all aim for a “quality of life,” not a “have it all” attitude, factor in some down time, turn off the electronics, and save some activity for your Probably Yous.

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Do The Dead Dream? 2017 Best Book Awards Winner for Fiction: Short Stories